C'est la vie

Pages

lundi 1 mai 2017

Please note: I am not the inventor of this block: I found a tutorial for it here.
But as it is in English and that I am using this block for a french quilting Bee, I am basically making a new tutorial in french for my fellow bee quilters!
I am planning for a quilt for my boy's room and he chose this design! what can I say, he has awesome tastes!
So here is my version of this block, in french!

mardi 18 avril 2017

Spring has sprung, and it is so good!
Many things make me happy these days, and one of them is my daughter's passion for horse riding and her great talent at jumping obstacles.
We went to that beautiful place in our area for her to attend a jumping competition.
The place was so beautiful. And so was my girl!

She rode like a queen on her little poney, it was the most amazing thing to watch.

She was so concentrated on her race, so focused ! It made me feel good to see her so determined.

She has so many qualities and her strength gives me hope for her future.
I am hoping I am raising a future strong woman, determined, independant and kind.

I have never made a handbag that I could use daily.
But I could not resist anymore making the Compass Bag by Noodlehead . I know I can trust her for making the best bag patterns ever! and this one does not disappoint. Everything falls into place perfectly, she gives great trips too. And all in all it is a pretty easy sew.
The only hard part was to find the proper hardware in France.

mercredi 15 mars 2017

Here is my first attempt at improv quilting!
Honestly it felt so good I can't really put words on the experience.
It all started when I got this book from Amazon, after listening to a podcast featuring the author, Sherri Lynn Wood.
I found her intriguing and really wanted to look into her book to see what she was really on about!
And, oh my reader, honestly! I never would have thought that quilting could be so freeing, so artistic and creative.

What I really love about the book is that she does not provide patterns per se, but "scores": 2 or 3 guidelines to kick start your creativity. And then : off you go!

For me what happenened with this quilt top is that I was trying to put some order in my fabric and made a pile of the three main fabrics totally by chance: that gorgeous night blue, the beautiful gold-mango yellow and the gorgeous Art Gallery orange. I thought they looked awesome together, and started cutting into them, with no rulers! going with the flow, raw by raw, enjoying the piecing progress without thinking about perfectly matched seams!

During the piecing process, I let go of my fears, of my quest for perfection. It was not easy and often I felt something like :"Who are you to think you can make your own pattern here? Who are you to think you can create something unique, without following the rules?!"
Honestly, there was a lot of that involved. But the author of the book does incourage you to follow your creative instinct and to let go of your fears.

I also tried to apply her method of "yes... and": which is to say: now that I created this row, or this block, I am going to make it mine and say: what's next? what do I feel like adding to it? what would go well with it now?
Honestly : so good!

I quilted it almost all with my free motion quilt foot. I am a total beginner when it comes to free motion quilting. But I though this crazy improv quilt was the perfect place to start experimenting.

I added some really awesome Essex yarn dyed linen in black for the binding and called it a day!

The quilt is now on my girl's bed. She loves it, she loves sleeping under it and she thinks it is the coolest thing on earth:)